Page 2 of A Maid of No Consequence (Pride and Prejudice Variation)
HUMBLED AND GRIEVED
E lizabeth Bennet stood outside of the Pollards’ London home, hands on her hips, trying to breathe whatever air she could into her lungs.
She was exhausted; her shoulders and elbows were aching, and she was sporting not only a rather dark bruise on her upper arm, but a yellowing one on her upper right cheek.
The former could be easily hidden by her sleeve; only Sarah, the maid who shared her room, had seen it.
But the bruise on her face was more of a challenge.
Even powdering it rarely helped, as the heat and sweat of her chores wore it off quickly.
Though she was to keep her hair securely under her cap, she allowed a few tendrils to fall forward and provide some concealment.
It was not the first time she had the need to hide unsightly marks.
In the dead of night, when she could not sleep, she would try to unravel just how she found herself in this predicament.
The last five years had been a tangled web of grief, determination, loss, disappointment, and utter survival instinct.
Looking down at her servant’s smock, smeared with grime from the day, all she could do was shake her head.
The life she had led as Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn seemed a dream.
“Best not to think of that now.” She reached up to swipe her forearm across her brow, pushing her hair from her eyes.
She needed to hurry, otherwise the lady of the house would find another reason to be angry at her, to rebuke her, perhaps even to strike her.
..again. Sighing, she bent down to give attention to a pair of muddied boots abandoned carelessly by the door, marvelling at how a ten-year-old boy could find every mud puddle and pile of sodden earth in London in a single day.
It would do no good to complain; there were others that had it much harder than she.
As maid of all work, it was her responsibility to do anything that the other servants did not want to do, or anything the lady of the house would demand of her.
And of demands, there were many. At least she had moments like this, moments where she could stop and breathe and allow herself to feel human for a short while.
At this part of the house, in the kitchen courtyard, Elizabeth could sit at the bottom of the stairs that led to the street above, and look up to see a small slice of town life.
Here she could listen to the happy squeals of children as they ran ahead of their parents, catch glimpses of colourful silken skirts, and hear snippets of conversation and the rumble of the carriages going by.
And they would bring with them memories of the happiness she had once known.
She would not often allow herself to dwell on her predicament.
Still, memories did come at the strangest of times, and she found herself wool-gathering, hearing imaginary notes of music playing, recalling the gentle steps of country dances and the swaying ribbons in her sisters’ hair—and the short, confusing history with the most handsome gentleman of her acquaintance.
She sighed deeply at the recurring remembrance of a dance, a few perplexing looks, complicated, unfamiliar feelings, and one terribly muddled, poorly executed proposal.
And then of course, the worst of it, the news that changed Elizabeth’s life forever.
Stopping herself, she shook her head free of the thoughts that always gathered there. Even five years on, they held such turmoil for her. She was not that Elizabeth any longer. And yet, she wondered often about the man who once held her gloved hand in his.
“Enough, Elizabeth!” She chided herself.
She focused her attention on the wrapped sweets that Cook had gathered for young Billy, the son of Mr Brumsley, the coal merchant.
It was their day for delivery, and Elizabeth needed to listen for the coal merchant’s carriage.
She usually heard Mr Brumsley pulling the horse to a stop before his son, who was now a gangly twelve-year-old and almost as tall as his father, would pull the burlap sack across the cobbles to drop the coal from the pavement hatch into the cellar below.
With her eye on the wrapped sweets, and her stomach grumbling, she put her energy into cleaning the muddy boots of young Master Humphrey, Lord Pollard’s heir.
With the bucket between her knees, and a wash rag dipped in soapy water, she pulled as much of the sticky mess off as she could on the first pass, before plunging the rag into the warm water Cook had given her.
Warm water made Elizabeth think of how she would revel in a very long hot bath to soak her weary bones.
Closing her tired eyes, she heard the clopping sound of Buttercup, young Billy’s pride and joy.
She waited to hear Mr Brumsley give his son the go-ahead to get out of the cart and haul the coal; when he did, she set down the boots and reached for the wrapped sweets.
Suddenly she heard a boy’s yelp, and looking up, saw pieces of coal come flying through the railing. “Billy?” She bolted up the stairs as quickly as she could, only to stop abruptly when she saw the profile of an impeccably dressed man down on his knees, helping the boy to his feet.
“Are you well?”
At the sound of the stranger’s deep voice, her heart skipped a beat. At that very moment, the kneeling man turned his head, and their eyes met.
Gasping, Elizabeth turned quickly and retreated down the stairs, forgetting she had left the bucket of muddy water and half-cleaned boots on the second stair. She stepped into the bucket, crying out as she dragged it off the step and tumbled down, landing at the foot of the stairs.
She lay dazed on the cobblestone, feeling the water soaking her apron and her frock. Still trying to comprehend what had just happened, she heard the gate open, and quick footsteps on the stairs. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping this was only a ridiculous dream.
“Are you quite well? May I help you to rise?”
She groaned, not from the pain, but utter embarrassment. Of all the gentlemen to walk down this street at this very moment! She could not allow him to see her, to know what had become of her, and turned her head to the side almost painfully.
“Are you hurt? Stay there, I will find a doctor to?—”
“No!” Elizabeth said, more loudly than necessary. “Please, sir. No. I will be well.”
“Your voice…I know your voice.” He said the words so quietly that she wondered whether he realised he had said it aloud. Then, more clearly, he said, “Can it be…? Please look at me that I may make sure that you are well.”
“Please sir, I am well. Please, just go on with your evening and leave an embarrassed maid to rise slowly. I am well. Truly.” Desperate not to reveal her identity, Elizabeth was too well-spoken to sound like a humble and uneducated servant.
He did not move. Of course not. The man she knew was stubborn and prideful. He has left me once, why can he not do so now?
As if he heard her thoughts, he said, “I cannot just turn my back and leave, if I was somehow the reason for your fall.” He cleared his throat, and to Elizabeth, it was the voice she longed to hear for so long, and yet not here, not at this time, but only in a dream she once had for another life.
As she had reminded herself many times, that imagined life was not real.
Where she found herself now, today, this was her real life.
Five years could have been more like twenty, as each day was without hope for anything better.
She suspected the man before her would stay until she showed her face, and so with as much grace as a woman who was sprawled inelegantly on the ground could muster, Elizabeth gently removed herself from the damp puddle beneath her, and slowly turned to raise herself to a sitting position.
A spasm of pain in her ankle told her that perhaps standing would not be prudent.
As soon as she regained her sense of decorum, tidying the skirts around her, she looked up into the face she knew she would find. And oh! What a face it was!
“It is you!”